The following explanation helped me understand the meaning of the Lord's prayer:

Our Father, Who art in heaven


We start this prayer by professing our core religious belief that God is our heavenly Father—the one who is all knowing and all powerful. Notice that Jesus didn’t instruct us to say, “My Father” but stressed “Our Father.” Scripture scholar John Meier explains that in God’s kingdom, we don’t live as isolated individuals but “we experience God’s fatherhood as members of the church, the family of Jesus the Son.” This reminds us that we recognize all those around us as children of God and treat them accordingly.

Hallowed be Thy Name

Hallowed is another word for holy or sanctified. When we say “hallowed be Thy name,” we are not only telling God “I recognize that you are holy,” but more importantly, we’re asking that His name be recognized by everyone throughout the world as being the ultimate holy power—that one day (sooner rather than later) all will know Him to be righteous, powerful, and everyone’s one true God.

Thy Kingdom come

This petition has a two-fold meaning. First, we are asking that God’s kingdom (where there’s only goodness, honesty, and love for one another) surround us in our everyday life. Secondly, we are praying for the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise that He will return at the end of time and grant us eternal life.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

We pray these words asking for God’s grace to move us to do His will throughout our life. That means doing all the things that will please our Father—even the difficult things, whether it’s something big such as moving an elderly parent into our home or volunteering our time once a week at the soup kitchen, to something as small as giving up a parking space or not calling a best friend to spread some juicy gossip. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says, “In committing ourselves to [Christ], we can become one spirit with him, and thereby accomplish his will…”

Give us this day our daily bread

Here we’re recognizing that all things we need come to us from God. We’re asking that God continue to give us not only the food we need for nourishment, but also the Bread of Life, the Eucharist.

And forgive us our trespasses,
 as we forgive those who trespass against us

This is a tough one. It may be easy for us to ask God to forgive us our “trespasses” or sins, but God in his infinite wisdom teaches us that in order for Him to forgive our wrongdoings, we must first forgive those who’ve hurt us. God isn’t being difficult, rather He’s teaching us that when there is bitterness and anger in our hearts, there’s no room for His love to fill our hearts. How can we ask God to be merciful and forgive our sins, if we’re holding a grudge or refuse to forgive someone who’s wronged us? Forgiving someone is often easier said than done. Only God can give us the strength to do it through prayer.

And lead us not into temptation,

Temptation and sin go hand in hand. When we come face to face with temptation, it can sometimes be difficult to resist. That’s why we need our Father to set up the road blocks and lead us far from the path of temptation.

But deliver us from evil.

Evil is an unfortunate reality in our world. The devil is always trying to tempt us and makes it his full-time job to look for ways to steer us from the right path and onto the wrong one. The devil has no power over God and when we pray to God for protection against all that is evil, He will shield us— always.

As a model, the Lord's Prayer makes several points.  In this post, I will restrict myself to its first practical applilcation:

(1) The prayer recommends a balance between presuming a very personal intimate connection with God and experiencing justifiable fear and awe in God's presence.  The Aramaic "abba" can be translated "Dad" and invokes the image of a young trusting child sitting on its Dad's lap, innocently making requests in the knowledge that Dad is eager to please, but will keep the child's best interests in mind.  But this image creates the danger of presumption in far too casual prayers in which we act as if God is our predictable "pal,"  The other side of the contrast ("Hallowed by Thy name") literally means "let your name be reserved for special reverence" (awe, fear) and acknowledges that God is ultimately far too complex to be reduced to anthropomorphic categories and that human "ways" and "thoughts" are far from the equivalent of divine "ways" and thoughts (Isaiah 55:7-8)."  Authentic experience of divine presence evokes "fear" and "awe" because it makes one aware of both unimaginable power and our ignorance of how God may use that power in ways that shock us.  For example, n my most precious experience of divine presence, I was both bathed in an increasingly intensified wave after wave of liquid love, and yet, was at one point terrified at the feeling that my small ego was about to be absorbed and extinguished in divine mind!  The Bible warns us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).

The need for this balancing act underlies God's foundational Self-disclosure to Moses at the burning Bush (Exodus 3:14).  Moses asks for God's name, but (as often happens in the OT) God evades this request.  Instead, God offers the phrase "I Am Who I am," more practically translated, as "I will be whatever I will be."  In other words, a single name can't capture my essence; so a vaguer and more flexible name is more accurate.  To paraphrase: "I will be whatever I will be to you, but I reserve the right to communicate differently through the myths and rituals of other cultures.  It is best for you know my by my gracious acts in your behalf (e. g. the exodus out of Egypt and the miraculoud Reed Sea crossing)."  Thus, later when Israel neglects social justice and feels uniquely entitled about their exclusive relationship with God, God warns:

"Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel, says the Lord?  Did I not bring you up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor (= Crete) and the Arameans from Kir (=modern Iraq--Amos 9:7)."